Docs praise EHR value

The next time your CEO pours cold water on your EHR project, shoot him a copy of this article. When the Vioxx recall hit in late September 2004, it was almost a yawner for Dr. Peter Basch. "It took us two or three minutes to figure out which of our patients were on it," says Basch, who is part of an eight-doctor practice in Washington, D.C. That two to three minutes was all it took to structure and execute a search in the practice's electronic records database. Basch says that the Vioxx recall was a non-crisis for his practice, largely because he and the other doctors have been using EHRs for the past nine years.

Basch is a great, white-coated hope for much of the medical industry--a doctor in a small practice who is using EHRs and believes in them, he says, "with almost religious fervor." But such faith is sparse among doctors. Basch estimates that EHRs are used by no more than 15 percent of the 800 doctors employed by MedStar Health, the seven-hospital corporation that owns his practice. And so far, only 14 percent of all physicians in the United States have invested in EHRs, according to a 2005 survey by the Medical Group Management Association.

Many physicians say that they simply don't see the financial upside for their practices and some are concerned about retaining the confidentiality of patient information. "How do you convince a practice to spend between $20,000 and $40,000 a physician and decrease productivity and disrupt the practice for a year to make the change to these systems?" Basch asks. "That's a tough argument to make in the current environment."

For more on such arguments:
- read this CIO Article

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